


Survivor's Guilt

by Mellifluor



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon non-compliant on account of I Made The Character Three Dimensional And Relatable., Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24750961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellifluor/pseuds/Mellifluor
Summary: "Awareness seeped in slowly but insistently like the winter chill at his back, steadily sharpening at the edges. It took him a split second to realize he was hanging upside down in the crashed pod. Had he made it to Earth?"A very, very short piece exploring Shiro's thought  processes and feelings. Takes place just after season two I think.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	Survivor's Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first fic I'm posting on ao3 despite reading and writing fics for nearly a decade at this point. It's been in my drafts forever, and my best friend finally convinced me to just post something short. So I chose this, since it works as a standalone fic.
> 
> Takes place just after season two, I think, but I'm not entirely sure since it's been so long. Feel free to correct me.
> 
> Feel free to point out if I have any typos as well, but refrain on formatting. I'm transferring from Google drive and am still figuring out what works. I'm also posting this at 3 am and I anticipate it looking weird for a bit before I get a chance to check on it again.

He came to with pressure in his head and ringing in his ears, and no sense of what was up or down. Awareness seeped in slowly but insistently like the winter chill at his back, steadily sharpening at the edges. It took him a split second to realize he was hanging upside down in the crashed pod. Had he made it to Earth? 

No. That had already happened. 

That had happened ages ago. 

He’d been captured again? Ah, there we go. This was another escape.

Reorienting himself in the present, he looked to see what was holding him in place, becoming aware of the ache in his left leg, which was being crushed by the console of the shuttle. Finding he couldn't pry it off with his hands, he cast about for something to use. His eyes landed on the blaster he'd stolen lying a few feet away. He stretched out to reach it when the shuttle suddenly lurched - his leg twinging as he tensed involuntarily - sending the weapon skidding down the length of the cockpit. 

Down. 

There was no ground visible through the broken nose of the shuttle, only a sheer cliff face too far away for depth perception to apply. He slowly reached again for the blaster, feeling every vibration through the creaking metal of the shuttle as he shifted its center of gravity, a new urgency building in his limbs the closer he crept to his goal. 

Breathe. 

Focus. 

He pushed back the frantic shaking encroaching on his movements. Be patient. Be steady. 

Just a little farther. 

It was like he could feel the texture of the ground itself through the vibrations as the hull scraped across it. And then the shuttle abruptly loosened and slid. Adrenaline shot through his gut, the panic pushing him the last crucial millimeters to grip, shoot, and fall into a heap on the ceiling turned floor even as the shuttle began to tilt. He scrambled to face the opening, watching the angle grow steeper with each passing millisecond, the probability of escape dwindling with it. The motion was terrifyingly slow, building like a storm cloud, tipping toward its event horizon. 

The urgency from before suddenly drained from his limbs, leaving them leaden. 

Could he even make it? 

He was so tired. 

If he did make it out, would it even matter? 

Were any of his friends alive? 

He could give in now and let it end. 

It would be easier than surviving again just to discover that none of it had mattered. That everyone was gone. That he was only able to save himself. Again. 

... 

If they were alive now, he'd be leaving them because he didn't try.    


He couldn't take that risk.

He began moving as soon as he'd finished the thought, allowing instinct to take over. No time to think. Time to go. The drive to survive powered his limbs forward, like an emotion but physical, strong and pure. No other choice. Up, up, up the edge of the craft. He'd lost valuable time, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was escape. 

He leapt. 

The motion was disorienting and nauseating, his upward velocity nearly being canceled out by the downward velocity of the falling craft, making it feel as though he was really just hanging in the air for a moment, and all he could do was reach and hope he'd jumped soon enough, far enough-

His right hand connected with the cliff edge with a smack that jarred his whole body despite the shock absorption built into its frame, making his ears ring again. But he held firm. (He had enough self respect not to thank the galra scientists for the engineering that allowed him to hold on. After all, if not for them, he wouldn't need to use it to catch himself on a goddamn cliff face in the first place.)

Some clawing and scrabbling like a terrified kitten brought him up and over the edge of the cliff. He rolled over with what little energy he had left, the ache in his leg returning with a vengeance now that he didn't have death attempting to swallow him whole. He tilted his leg vaguely to the side, hoping to bring it in contact with the snow, but it was beyond that shallow range of motion, and he wasn't about to move any further to accommodate it. 

His mind drifted to his moment of weakness on the shuttle, and the shame that came with it. He sighed vaguely, eyes on the sky above. 

Let it go. Learn. It would do no good to dwell on it. 

It was always harder to let go of failure when he felt this way.


End file.
